The Beast and Bella Swan
by captainofyourship
Summary: An grumpy ogre, an inquisitive girl, and a cheeky wolf, in an enchanted castle. Whimsy and magic realism rolled up in a charming story of innocence and discovery.
1. Chapter 1

characters owned by SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

First Bit

_"O Edward he is bold and brave, and he is fearless too,_

_He is the Prince of Everywhere, and he's the Prince of You"_

is a nursery rhyme all kids are taught when they're little. Of course we don't have princes any more since all the monarchies have been dissolved, and all the little kids have to ask their parents what it means.

_"He lives in a castle tall, ruling on his own_

_And when he finds his Princess fair he'll share with her his throne"_

is the second verse, and I had to ask my mother about that, too.

"What's a castle? What's a throne?" I enquired, and when she explained it to me, it sounded horribly unfair. How could someone be in charge just because they'd been born to it? And how could the person they marry be entitled to the same authority? What about the voice of the people?

"Kings had to prove themselves to be just and honorable or they'd be overthrown," my mother said.

It still didn't sound right to me.

I live in a very pleasant land with a prime minister and a parliament, and no one person has all the power. Everything's fine and lovely, and it's always sunny, and my name is Isabella Swan, like the bird. I have quite a long neck, actually, and I am very white.

One day much like all the others I was wandering far from home when I noticed a butterfly, and followed it, and after that a squirrel, and after that a fawn. I frolicked and gamboled a long way following nature's woodland creatures, and realized suddenly that I didn't know where I was. Another of nature's woodland creatures appeared to me then, and this one didn't look as innocent or harmless as the others had been. It was a wolf.

"You're trespassing," it growled.

"I didn't notice any signs, and I haven't climbed over any fences," I replied.

"That's interesting," it said, its head to one side regarding me steadily. "Our castle walls are as nothing to the pure. Look behind you."

I turned. Behind us were twelve foot high walls of solid stone. They must have been invisible from the other side, and I must have walked straight through them.

"A twenty-first century virgin," the wolf remarked with what looked a raised eyebrow.

"You don't have to say that quite so loudly. It's not a fact for general broadcast," I muttered.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," it answered. "Now, I have permanent orders to take trespassers to my master. Come with me," and I contemplated running away, but he was very tall, with very long legs, and he yawned then, and I saw very big teeth.

"You don't know my grandmother, do you?" I asked nervously.

"Is she small and sweet? I may have eaten her," he answered. I thought I'd do as he suggested instead of making a run for it, just in case he was hungry.

"Who is your master?" I asked as we walked, trying to make conversation.

"An ogre," was the response. "He's very, very ugly, and he's horrible. It's rather unfortunate for you."

We proceeded to a huge door standing alone in the middle of a meadow strewn with violets and buttercups and he waved his sweeping plume of a tail and gave a loud yip, and the door creaked open.

Though on either side of the door the meadow continued greenly, inside I saw rows of hedges with paths between.

"A maze," I breathed.

"Follow me, and pay attention, or you'll be lost. People spend years in here. Sometimes we find skeletons," the wolf warned, and he broke into a run. He wove from side to side in front of me, turning often to laugh, and sometimes jumping behind to circle me, and sometimes jumping right over my head.

I didn't mean to laugh back, I tried to be serious, but I couldn't stay that serious with his shenanigans, and we were both laughing when he came to an abrupt halt just before I lost my breath altogether. I tumbled and fell right on top of him. He rolled, and was atop me momentarily, his warm exhalation in my mouth, and his tongue panting at my cheek.

"Jacob," a voice said sharply, and we both scrambled up.

We must have been in the centre of the maze. It was a broad, manicured area bordered by trees carved into shapes and hung with red peaches and golden pears and purple plums. In front of us was a magnificent cast bronze throne, and in the throne was a creature.

It was finely dressed in a suit of velvet and brocade, but the distinction and elegance of its dress failed to disguise its dreadfulness. A huge boarlike head emerged from the lace collar, with fearsome tusks and tiny glittering eyes. Its shoulders strained against the coat, they being massive and placing such pressure upon the seams that all looked fit to burst. Protruding from the sleeves were wrist-like appendages, bulky and thick, coated in rough dark hair, and ending in cloven black hooves.

And from the trousers the story was similar - nether legs bulging and hirsute, with feet cleft like those of swine.

This, then, was the ogre.

"How did you get here?" it demanded in a rough voice, far too deep and grumbling and gruff for a human, although I had only needed one very quick look to determine its lack of humanity.

"I believe I walked through the walls," I said, my voice shivering with fright, and I shrunk two inches or so by cowering.

"Now that you're in, don't expect to get out. This place imprisons me, and it will imprison you, too," it grunted.

"Please, sir, I didn't mean to cross onto your property. Don't keep me here, my mother will be very upset," I implored. "I have to go to school on Monday."

"There are no gates in the walls, and no doors. Can you fly?" it asked coolly, before turning away.

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	2. Chapter 2

characters owned by SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Second Bit

"Well, that's Cullen, the ogre. Friendly, isn't he? He went to charm school," the wolf drawled. "And now you know my name. What's yours?"

I considered. If you tell people your name you give them power over you. I didn't want to hand over any power. I was already at the mercy of these two, more or less, but neither of them could address me directly without my name.

"I don't really see why you would need to know," I answered.

"Now, now, pretty girl, don't be difficult. It doesn't do you any good. You know you really shouldn't be walking around the woods by yourself, don't you? Haven't you heard the stories? You might meet someone just like me. And since you have, it's only fair to inform you, you'll be here until we've fattened you up enough to make a meal of you. You might as well tell me your name so you and I can chat between now and then," he said.

"You're going to eat me?" I gasped.

"Why wouldn't I? I'm a carnivore, and you're made of meat. And you look _delicious_." He licked his lips, his eyes gleaming. I thought he might not be serious, but I couldn't be sure.

"Just you try it, buster," I warned, looking around to see if there was anything I could pick up and use to bash him.

"I'll tell you what, you tell me your name and give me a hug, and you can live another five minutes," he said.

All I could see that I could possibly bash him with was fruit, and that wouldn't slow him down one iota unless he really disliked the smell of pulp. I knelt next to him and put my arms around his shaggy neck. "My name is Bella," I whispered, listening to the heavy thud of his heart inside the deep chest.

"Ah, Bella, thank you for telling me, and thank you for the hug. I can feel your breasts," he said.

I leapt up and got ready to take a swipe at him and he danced easily out of my way, leaving me over-balanced and in a heap on the ground at his feet.

"I'm sorry, Bella, no more teasing," he said, looking sincere. "I would never, ever eat you, if it was up to me you could live forever and all future hugs will be graciously received with no lascivious remarks."

"There won't be any future hugs, you hairy, overgrown alsation!" I spluttered.

"I can see I'll have to be extra nice to you until you forgive me. Can I get you something to eat? Nothing fattening, of course. Would you like a drink?"

"No, nothing," I said, remembering Persephone. "Could you show me around?"

We walked side by side, and he showed me fountains and fishponds, rosevines and rotundas, balustrades and bridges. "This place is lovely," I said several times.

"Yes, I like it," he nodded as we walked. "But then I can come and go as I please. Cullen finds it hard being stuck here."

"How can you come and go?" I said. "And why can't he?"

"Oh, I can leap over the wall. I'm very strong, you can feel my muscles if you like. Cullen's here under a spell."

"I do _not_ want to feel your muscles, thank you very much. I'm not coming anywhere near you ever again. And what sort of spell is keeping Cullen here?"

"A beastly spell. The curse of his own monstrosity. Wait till you've had a few conversations with him - he's very negative," Jacob said casually. "You know, if you sat on my back I might be able to jump over the wall carrying you."

I eyed him doubtfully. Was this a trick? He was as big as a small horse, certainly, but the looming grey stone walls were high and foreboding, and didn't look as though they'd relinquish an incarcerant easily.

"Do you think so?" I said.

"Oh, you're a skinny little thing. Hop on board, and hold tight, let's give it a go," he grinned, so I slung one leg over him, and sat astride.

"Oomph," he grunted. "Clench your thighs around me, Bella, tighter!"

"I think you're enjoying this a little too much," I muttered, and he laughed, and trotted forward a few steps.

"Arms around me too, Bella," he called over his shoulder, breaking into a lope. I leaned into him, reaching around his neck and linking my fingers at the front of his chest, and felt him gather himself for the spring as he approached the wall. I don't think it had been too high to start with but as we ascended it grew, looming up and skywards even as we did, and the top stayed the same distance from Jacob's front paws it had been when we took off. Crashing back to earth we tumbled over one another yet again.

"Worth the try," Jacob mused, on top of me positively smirking. "_Definitely_ worth it. But it seems I'll have the pleasure of your company a little longer."

"Great," I said, shoving him away with some effort, and picking myself up.

"Cheer up, little one. You'll have the pleasure of mine, too," he said.

"Are you like this with everyone?" I scowled at him.

"There isn't an everyone. There's Cullen and you," he answered.

"Well, take me to Cullen then. I think you and I need a little break from one another for the good of your health," I said, and he actually looked hurt.

"As you wish," he said. "But you'll find him very sombre. Don't say I didn't warn you."

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	3. Chapter 3

characters property of SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Third Bit

"This place is enormous! How old is it? Where are the servants? Who does all the work? What's the history?" I had far more questions and remarks than Jacob was able to keep up with as we walked through the castle.

"Oh slow down, already. I'm not always here, I don't know all that stuff. If there are servants, they're invisible, or maybe the castle's alive, and self-maintaining. I've never figured it out. But Cullen lives alone. He's very moody - no-one would put up with him. You wait and see. Five minutes with him and you'll want me. He's all doom this and gloom that, I'm an abomination, nobody likes me, I wish I wasn't cursed, I don't deserve the sun and the blue sky because I'm such a loser - he just goes on and on. It's almost enough to depress me, and I'm not easy to depress. I _love_ the sun and the blue sky!"

Jacob, so far, seemed perennially good-natured. If he was a boy and not a talking wolf, I might like him.

"Hey, how come you can talk?" I asked suddenly.

"I don't think I can, Bella. I think mysteriously, you just understand me," he said. "Look, this is Laughing Boy's Chamber of Happiness. Good luck. I won't come in with you, because I don't have any wrists to slit, and I don't have opposable thumbs to pick up a dagger."

I walked in to the Renaissance, with tapestries on the cold walls, bearskins on the floor, flamed lanterns on stalks like broomsticks, velvet curtains heavy with lushness, and Cullen the Ogre seated at a small table inlaid with intricacy, indicating the chair across from him.

"Bella," he said in his strange, deep voice.

"How do you know my name?"

"I can read that fool Jacob's mind. Will you play a game with me?"

There was no board on the table, there were no pieces.

"What sort of game?" I asked him. His eyes were looking away, and I could study him. Snouted, bristled, red-haired and immense, he was quite a sight. The eyes turned to me then, and to my surprise they were green, and tender-lashed.

"A word game," he said. "I say a word, you tell me the first thing that comes to mind, then you say a word, and I do likewise."

"Sure, why not?" I responded, avoiding looking at the tusk area. Light from the lamps glinted off his tusks gently and warmly though, and gave the auburn hair on him a glow.

"Sorrow," he said.

"Toothpaste," I answered. "Castle."

"Despair," he said. "Heart."

I could already see what Jacob meant, and I'd been with him five seconds. "Spaghetti," I said.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"It's your game. Aren't I supposed to say the first think I think of? Or do you want me to say something you consider relevant? If you want to set it up in your favor you need to play with a minion."

"A minion?" he snorted. "Minions I have none. There is an insolent wolf who prowls the grounds, but if you happen upon a minion let me know, I should be pleased to meet it."

"What do you do here all day?" I asked him.

"Think," he answered. "Talk to Jacob. Avoid talking to Jacob. Walk. Sit. Stare. Think. My days are full."

Jacob totally forgot to mention that the Ogre had a sense of humor.

"What do you think about?" I asked.

"Dawn and dusk, and everything in between. Dusk and dawn, and everything before and after. What lies above the moon, and what lies beneath. Endeavor and folly, sense and senses, passion and persuasion, laughter and loss."

Jacob also totally left out the part about the Ogre being a philosopher. "What do _you_ think about?" Cullen said.

"Some of the same things, really. Why do you link endeavor to folly?"

"Endeavor seeks to improve upon the self, folly is mistakes, one cannot make mistakes without endeavor, every mistake is a lesson, learning leads to greater endeavor," he answered. I didn't really follow him at all, but I liked what he said.

We continued to have a convoluted, cryptic conversation in the flame-light thrown about the chamber by his torches, and he paid me the upmost attention. He was fascinating. All too soon, he stood and walked to the window, murmuring, "The horizon woos the sun and the sun is an eager lover. Evening approaches. My hour will be upon me soon, you must leave. Jacob will be outside, and you had better tell him to put some clothes on." I knew myself dismissed.

Jacob lay outside on the great stone-flagged floor, muzzle resting on his crossed front paws.

"Suicidal?" he asked, raising his head to greet me. "Did he drag you into his pit of despondence? You're holding up well."

"He wasn't so bad. We had an interesting talk, actually. I don't think you give him enough credit. But what's his hour, and why did he say I should tell you to get dressed?"

"He said that, did he?" Jacob chuckled. "He's probably right, you being a virgin and all. His hour is also mine, we call it the Hour of Disenchantment and it happens every evening, just before dinner. It's due to start in about five minutes. We both take on human form."

"You have a human form?" I ask, surprised.

"Yep. Bet you can't wait. I'll take you to the Great Hall, and then I'll go somewhere private for the transformation, because once I change I'm naked. Unless you'd like me to change in front of you, of course."

"Of course _not_," I answered.

"Whatever you say, Bella. I'll get dressed and meet you for dinner."

"Will Cullen be joining us?

"Absolutely not. When he changes he always goes and hides himself down in some dank cellar tinkling the ivories. And no, that's not referring to engagement in some bizarre self-abuse practice, although he _is_ very pale...hmm..." here Jacob barked with laughter at himself. "No, he goes and plays the piano, because it's the only time he can, because when he changes he has fingers instead of hooves, so he takes the chance to indulge his eternal melancholy because he is so _sensitive, _you'd think we could kick a football around or something, or play cards, but no, he gets all woeful and achey and he's just boring."

We got to yet another of the heavy wooden doors, and Jacob stopped suddenly, wheeling to face me. "It's happening now, Bella, I've got to go, or you'll see more than you bargained for. Make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back in a minute." He sounded urgent and he raced away.

I put my hand to the door, and felt strange suddenly, with a tingle underneath my skin all over, and a twitching at my back and a trembling in my face. By the time I got into the room, I was stumbling. My skin felt inflamed and I wanted to scratch at it and tear it off. An agony was dragging at my shoulders, so sharply it was surely dislocating them, and my jaw was grinding convulsively. My legs wouldn't hold me and I fell to the floor, bashing my chin on a chair on the way down, causing my head to be flung back in whiplash, wrenching my neck and giving me even more pain to contend with. I wanted to call for Jacob, but I felt too feeble and I hoped it wouldn't be long until he returned.

None of the discomfort abated as I lay writhing, in fact it got worse. My head could form the thought "What is happening to me?" but when I tried to voice it I couldn't. My eyes had rolled back by now, and though I tried to focus and look along my shaking, shuddering body, I couldn't.

It must have only been minutes when a musical voice called, "Bella?" and footsteps hurried into the room.

"Hello, what are you doing in here? You should be outside, and where's my beautiful girl?" the voice asked in bewilderment, and I looked up. And up. And up again. The immensely tall person standing over me swooped down and squatted, and an extremely handsome young man with copper skin and long jet black hair stared into my eyes.

"It's me, Jacob, you've seen me before. Relax, I'll take you to the lake," he began, and then he stopped.

"Oh," he grunted in amazement and comprehension. "Oh _no_..."

I didn't seem to be able to speak, which was probably the least of my worries, really.

"Oh, _no_," he said again, and the dismay in his voice was palpable. "Bella? I have to show you something," he said, scooping me up in his arms, and carrying me across the room, my head flopping about in a way I couldn't understand.

When he stopped we were in front of a portrait. There he was in the frame, and really, if there was such a thing as a cute-o-meter, he'd break it. _This_ was Jacob's human form? Off-the-scale cute. I worked out I had neck muscles after all, and I raised my head and looked at his picture in a happy daze for a couple of seconds before something registered.

The boy in the painting was breathing, I could see it, and looking down at me, then back up to the picture. That meant it wasn't a painting at all, it was a mirror. Where was _I_? I could feel his arms around me, but he was holding a swan.

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	4. Chapter 4

Characters property of SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Fourth Bit

"Why aren't you saying anything, Bella?" Jacob asked in a strained voice after a minute. "Are you mute? Can't swans talk?"

I struggled in his hold, still figuring out how to manoeuvre my neck, and I immediately went to peck him.

"Hey! This isn't my doing! Don't get mad at me! I'm just as upset as you are!" he yelped, as I got a beakful of his arm. "Look, obviously the Disenchantment works on you as well. Let's hope it's only for the hour. We'll go outside. Are you hungry? Maybe we can find you a nice fish in the lake." He yelped again as I bit him again, and he put me down.

"Do you know what this means, Bella?" he said as he led me down halls and corridors, past stained glass windows and suits of armor, statues and shields, spears and swords, all manner of things against or in, or upon the walls. He walked slowly for me, because his legs were extremely long, and mine were extremely short.

"It means we're not going to both be human at the same time. I had it all sorted out in my mind, you know, while you were talking to Cullen. You and me, me and you, walks in the moonlight, dinner together every night, a couple of kisses, some of those nice hugs you give, but I'd be able to hug you back, and then, you know, one day after I changed I wouldn't get dressed because you wouldn't want me to, and we could..." his voice trailed off. My mouth couldn't speak, but it seemed my eyes could. My head was right at the level of his crotch, and I gave him a very threatening look.

"Oh, look, I won't go any further, okay? No more biting, Bella! Especially where you look like you want to bite me! It's not my fault. And hey, I'm not about to suggest either of us get involved in anything kinky involving one human and one animal. This is the biggest bummer _ever_, but did anyone ever tell you you have a nice waddle?"

We were outside by now, and he leapt away as he asked the last question. He was as agile a human as he was a wolf and I discovered swans couldn't run very fast, or new ones at any rate. I fell over trying to chase him and tied my long neck in a knot. He had to help me unwind it.

"Actually, Bella, you know there might be a positive side to this strange thing the castle has done to you. It wouldn't be positive for _me_, I'll admit, but look at you. You're a bird. Maybe you can fly! Cullen said that's how you could get out of here!"

I could barely walk, but he had a point. I raised my wings and beat them furiously, generating a breeze that made his coal-black hair whip around his face, but nothing happened.

"You might need a few goes. I'm sure no cygnet ever flew on its first attempt. Why don't you try taking a run-up?" Jacob said kindly, stepping back.

I took a run-up, or more accurately a waddle-up, and this time managed to get an inch or two off the ground.

"Way to go," Jacob called encouragingly, and I tried and tried and tried again, until to my surprise and his, I got well clear of the ground, and circled around his head.

"Well done," he said, looking distinctly _not_ pleased. "But we've only got about ten minutes left, Bella. Don't worry too much about it, we'll try again tomorrow. I'd say you're going to need days of training, and that might just give me long enough to make you change your mind and stay. But on the other hand, there's something I should tell you. Come back down for a second so you can listen."

I landed, smugly, and stood in front of him. He squatted to his haunches at my eye level.

"I'm not bound to the wolf form all day the way Cullen is bound to the beast, it's only when I'm within the castle grounds. When I'm outside, I can be a man whenever I want. The walls just might let you out, so in case they do, tell me where you live Bella, and I can be your boyfriend, out in the real world."

I couldn't speak, as I appeared to be mute. Instead I shook my head, imagining myself introducing him to my mother. "Renee, this is Jacob. He lives in a castle, he can change into a wolf, and he thinks he ate grandma." This boyfriend suggestion of his was ludicrous considering I'd known him all of two or three hours. Besides, just because someone's gorgeous doesn't mean you're going to fall for them.

His look of disappointment at the head shake was almost comical. "No? No, what? No, I can't be your boyfriend? No, you won't tell me where you live? I'll come looking, Bella, don't think I won't. You know you want me."

In response, I lifted my great wings again reveling in the pull across my chest of new muscles, feeling the power in them, and arching my head to admire how glossy I was. I flapped, and took to the air, and though the wall made a half-hearted attempt at lifting itself, for some reason it didn't want to hold me any more, and I soared over it, dipping my wings in a salute and a farewell to Jacob as I went.

"You're really going? You don't want me?" he called plaintively, from far below. "Couldn't you just take a few minutes to think about it?"

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	5. Chapter 5

characters owned by SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Fifth Bit

Of all the houses in my town, mine was closest to the woods, and ten minutes later when I turned much less painfully into a human and found myself naked, I didn't have too far to run from tree to tree in a complete panic. Luckily my mother wasn't home to catch me sneaking into the house, because I would have had a _lot_ of explaining to do. It's one thing to find yourself caught up in a fantastical twisted fairy tale, but quite another to get your mother to believe it when you come home with no clothes on.

The week rolled around, and I went to school, and blah blah blah. I had never been so bored in my life. I wanted to play with Jacob, and fend off his outrageous flirting, and I wanted another strange and yet profound talk with Cullen. By Saturday my mind was made up, although truthfully, I think my mind was made up the minute I flew over the castle wall. I wanted to go back.

On Saturday, I wandered out to the woods again doing a bit of half-hearted capering, looking for a fawn to follow. None was obliging enough to show up, so I used my memory instead, and kept looking behind me for the walls.

I was looking back when I was knocked over.

"You're back! You couldn't stay away!" Jacob the wolf cried joyfully, and he actually licked my cheek, leaving a trail of slobber.

"Yuck! Get off, you're revolting," I scolded, but I couldn't hide my pleasure, and he knew it.

"Come on, back to the maze, let's play hide and seek. If you find me, you have to kiss me!" he called, bounding away. Of course, I turned the very first corner, and there he was, wagging his tail, his tongue hanging out, his deep, dark eyes shining.

"I'm not kissing you, no way. You didn't hide," I told him.

"Okay, if I find you, you have to kiss me!" he laughed, springing away again. He found me in seconds because he didn't let me out of his sight. No kiss.

We pranced about for a while together - he was so playful he brought out a playful side in me. And the comments and suggestions just didn't let up.

"You know, when we get together on the other side Bella, it's going to be so great. We'll have a little house, and we'll have little winged cubs for children, baby lycanthrope swan-people. We can come over here and visit old Grumpy-pants so he doesn't die of his own misery, and maybe the kids will even cheer him up. And then in the evenings you and I can lie down together naked in front of the fireplace, and..."

"Lovely to hear your thoughts, Jacob. Now where's Cullen?" I asked, and he groaned.

"Oh, he's in the orchard, through the maze, self-tormenting. He thinks he has winter on his breath and all the russet apples will fall off the trees. Really, his tragedy consumes him," Jacob said.

I set off in the direction he'd indicated, feeling I needed a dose of Cullen to balance Jacob's cheerfulness. Jacob made me laugh, that was for sure, and I'd missed his banter all week, but Cullen had intrigued me, and I wanted to know more.

The orchard was a tangle of briars and branches and blossoms and blooms, and looked like it acknowledged all seasons at once. Some trees were heavy with bursting fruit, some were shadows with branches bare, still others were robed in splendid springtime pink and white. I saw mandarins and nectarines, and guavas and grapes. I saw feijoas and figs, and olives and oranges. I saw Cullen.

"Bella, what are you doing here?" he asked, sounding astonished. Expressions were hard to discern upon his countenance, the snout not being very expressive.

"I wanted to see you again," I said. "Did Jacob tell you what happened?"

"No, he did not. He didn't need to. Such little activity goes on in his brain that something of the import of our newly arrived guest growing wings and flying to freedom occupied every neural impulse. I told you I could read his mind - I couldn't help but know."

"Stop being rude about him. I'm sure he thinks about a lot," I frowned.

"He thinks about _you_ a lot," Cullen said. "I might just manage to pick you a tamarillo, if you'd like one. I need to use both hooves and I try to be careful, but often they get squashed. It doesn't bother me of course, being somewhat porcine in my manners, but I'll try to keep one intact for you."

"Only through endeavor do we attain our goals," I said flippantly, feeling I was already slipping into his way of talking. I was really just trying to cover up, because I didn't know what a tamarillo was. He reached up to a luscious and sinful looking dark globe, so decadent the juice of it would surely stain me though and through, and show up on my snowy plumage when I changed.

"It's okay, Cullen, are there bananas?" I said hastily.

"The tamarillo too bitter for you?" he asked.

"How was your week?" I asked instead of answering.

"How was yours?" he deflected. I'd never met anybody who talked like him.

"I went to school, I came home, I did homework, I did some chores around the house, I spent time with my mum - that about sums it up," I replied.

"I did none of those things," he said, swatting at the tamarillo. It burst, and I was right about the juice. There was fruit blood everywhere.

"This makes a very fine wine. Would you like some in a goblet?" he offered.

"It's a bit early in the afternoon for me. And I'm underage," I told him, and he shrugged.

"Will you be leaving us again?" he asked.

"Yes, about half past five," I said, and I think he may have smiled.

"How shall we amuse ourselves until then? I can dance, you know," he said, and he waved one bristly forearm and a lyrebird appeared playing a lyre, and a bellbird appeared playing a bell, and he invited me to partake in a minuet. He was surprisingly graceful, and didn't stand on my feet once, although I managed to stand all over his and even kick him once or twice.

We talked all the while, he seemed to know a lot about history, and talked about the origins of stately dances. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, until there was a cough from the sidelines.

"Cullen, so sorry to interrupt, but I've come to see if Bella would like to go boating," Jacob said.

"A splendid idea, I'll take her," Cullen replied.

"No, I will," Jacob insisted, and I suddenly saw that they might squabble over me, and there wasn't enough of me to share, unless they cared to rip me in half.

"Isn't it nearly the Hour?" I said quickly.

"No," Jacob said, scowling.

"It's early afternoon," Cullen said, frowning.

"I think I'll just explore, by myself. Never mind the lake. I don't like water," I told them both, Jacob and his soft brown eyes, Cullen and his jewelled green ones. What had I done?

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	6. Chapter 6

**The Beast And Bella Swan**

Sixth Bit

I wandered off, although it wasn't like I could get ten feet without Jacob coming after me. I ignored him, and looked at some daffodils instead.

"Bella, are you annoyed about something?" he asked with slight concern.

I looked at some jonquils.

"Are you upset about anything?" He sounded more concerned now.

I looked at some crocuses.

There was a rush of air above me as he jumped clean overhead and turned to confront me.

"What's up?" he asked, his ears erect and arcing to me, his posture the very epitome of alertness. He really was splendid.

"I don't want to be the cause of disputes between the two of you," I declared.

"Oh, Bella, Cullen and I could argue about how long the day is, and whether one plus one equals seven. He'd swear black is cerulean blue and Egypt is the capital of Ethiopia, just to disagree with me. Really, don't worry about it. But Bella, this castle's origins are lost in the mistrust of time, and the walls are Cullen's own construction. You can meander all you like, but you need to have an escort. It's impossible to know your way around because the floor plan is subject to change without notice. We don't want you disappearing into some room that ceases to exist once the door has closed on you!"

"Take me to the kitchen, then. Where are the bathrooms? There must be a dungeon! Show me some more," I demanded, and Jacob was happier, trotting at my side, talking about this, that and the other, mostly the other. As in, "What about just before the Hour if you take all your clothes off and give them to me, and I take them over the wall, and afterwards once you've flown over I'll be there to meet you and you can get dressed again, slowly?"

"Why would you make such a suggestion? If I accept your plan, you get to see me naked twice!"

He didn't even have the grace to assume an innocent expression, in fact he smirked. "Just trying to help," he said.

"A great big no," I told him very sternly, and I knew dogs don't like to be spoken to in a harsh voice, they'd go all sorry-eyed, and I found out it was the same for wolves, even brazen ones.

Then I had the tour of the utility rooms, and they were all grand and cold and deserted, so perhaps the castle really did look after itself.

"Where's Cullen's room?" I asked Jacob, and he shrugged.

"You have to start at the start, and go whichever way you think it is, and then take a wrong turn and you'll find it," he sniffed, huffily, contradicting his earlier statement that I shouldn't attempt to go anywhere alone.

Cullen was in some sort of kimono when I found him, and looked truly alarming. I had to stifle a cry, which I hoped he didn't notice.

"I hope you weren't too disappointed about the boating," he said.

"No, I worked out neither of you could hold oars, and I would have had to row," I replied.

"Come, be seated, tell me about yourself," he invited, indicating a low couch.

I sat.

"Pomegranate?" he offered, extending an foreleg, holding out a glistening crimson thing in his trotter.

"What's the spell on you? What's the spell on Jacob? Don't you wish you could just walk out of here and go anywhere you like? Don't you wish you could have your human form all the time? How did things get like this?" I asked, all in a rush, declining the pomegranate. Would he only offer me fruit that bled redly?

"Some of your questions I can answer now, some will have to wait for another conversation," he said with a considered tone. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Well, I _asked_," I said, heavily emphasizing the 'asked'.

Cullen got up, and walked across the chamber, stopping before a mirror that took up nearly the entire wall. I could see myself in it, the frame I considered lissom when I wasn't tripping up, the hair I wore as a veil, the brown eyes determined to show determination. He caught me looking at me, and I caught him doing the same thing.

"Jacob is under no spell," he said to my reflection. "He is what he is. My walls do not contain him, just as they do not seem to contain you, and he has an outside life. He thinks I don't know this, but his mind is an open book to me, albeit without many pages. Far from being cursed he is blessed. Actually, there is a minor spell at work on him, that is that within the walls he is lupine until the Hour he and I assume human form. He can take human form whenever he wants when he is away from my influence. That answers one of your questions.

"Yes, I do wish I could get away from here. I can go anywhere I want, but the castle comes with me. I could walk to China, indeed I have, and the fortress simply accompanies me. Now that I have found this place I choose to remain, as it suits Jacob. He has found creatures like himself in the woods around your town, even a pretty she-wolf, although his thoughts are not of her this past week the way they were for the preceding months. He needs a home and a family, and here possibly he can find those things."

These replies gave me more questions. "Why don't the walls hold Jacob? And if they don't hold him why does he stay? And what does he think about?"

Cullen eyed me. "Jacob can scale the walls the way he can overcome obstacles - his spirit can soar. He has a lightness of heart. He stays because his great heart has an absurd sense of loyalty and I am its target and victim. He is not bound to me by anything other than choice, and I do not ask him to stay, in fact I have asked him to go, but he refuses. As to his thoughts, that I will not tell you."

"They can't be any worse than what he says," I said.

"Alas, they can and are," Cullen replied. "Bella, it's time. Go, now."

Jacob was waiting for me at the door, as he had been last week, but this time he was agitated, pacing to and fro, frowning.

"Bella, did your change hurt? I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you. It's not so bad after a while, you get used to it - but what do you want me to do?"

"Just take me somewhere comfortable so I'll be all right when I fall over, and come back as soon as you can. Thank you," I told him, and we had to run to some close by room where the floor was covered in plush cushions. Jacob stretched up on his back legs, paws at my shoulders.

"Hug me while you still have arms, Bella, quick," he panted. I was a little reluctant after what he'd said the last time, but I took him in my embrace, and he had to bend a little to lay his cheek next to mine, his jaw on my shoulder, his chest pressed to me.

"Mmm," he murmured. "If we could just do this when I didn't have so much hair, and if you didn't have feathers. I'd be able to feel your breasts much better."

I swatted him and he was gone.

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	7. Chapter 7

Characters owned by SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Seventh Bit

Without a smidgeon of exaggeration I can tell you right now that swans are preposterously vain, as well they might be, since their beauty is nonpareil. Either that, or the avian Bella was so lovely compared to the rather nondescript homo sapien version that to summon modesty would be redundant. I was simply too gorgeous for words, from my brilliant snowy breast, topped with such an elegant neck and a pretty head with a deep orange bill. Below the neck I was plump and voluptuous, with curves in all the right places. If I was a male swan, I would look for a mate just like me.

By the time Jacob came in I was preening contentedly and admiring myself. My neck was so flexible I could look all the way down my back. I could look at myself from underneath! (And my downy, moon-white belly was beautiful too)

"Come on Bella, I know you said you don't like the water, but let's give those webbed feet of yours a workout," he said, reaching to stroke me.

I walked along with him, but I tripped and stumbled straightaway because I just could not get over myself. There were mirrors along the halls - "Oh, they're there to remind Cullen of his inescapable beastliness," Jacob said - and I kept catching sight of this vision of lovely majesty that was me and not watching where I was going. Jacob laughed heartily, and it was a very nice sound, contagious really, although as a mute I couldn't join in.

Now, I am a "can't swim, won't swim," person, so I was very surprised to find the pacificity of the lake's tyrian depths a draw. I just popped right in, and in counterpoint to my slight clumsiness on land, I was as graceful as - well - a swan.

"Bella, you rock!" Jacob told me, grinning. "You rule!"

He came in too, clothes and all, and kept splashing me, and we played diving and twisting games. I executed figure-of-eights like an aquatic ballerina, and he lolloped about displacing amythest sparkling droplets that ornamented the air. I was so perfectly attuned to the harmony of my liquid element that it came as a real shock when Jacob reminded me, "It's nearly time, you'd better come out. You're not a mermaid!"

Reluctantly I clambered out, feeling my weight instantly. Jacob walked me to the wall, his shirt and jeans plastered to him, and my swan eyes did happen to notice in a detached, unmoved sort of way that he was kind of _built_. My swan eyes stopped taking surreptitious glances to the side after that, though, because he said, "I saw you checking me out, Bella."

I couldn't deny it with this faulty larynx of mine unable to utter a single word, but I could hiss, so I did.

"Now, now, gorgeous girl, don't be embarrassed to want me. _I'm_ not embarrassed about it. I'm already looking forward to next Saturday, I'll come and wait for you again, okay? Just like today? Can I give you a kiss now? Not on your bill, silly, I said nothing kinky. I know, why don't you give me a peck on the cheek?" He laughed a great deal at this little joke, and I discovered I could snort, but before he could get any closer I lifted my wings and made ready to fly.

"Aw, Bella," he groaned in disappointment as I left him behind and below. The walls not only didn't lift, I think they may have dipped.

After that, I had a routine. It was my last year of high school, and Monday to Friday was spent scholastically, cramming my head with all manner of uselessness. Saturday morning I helped my mother clean the house, although I was more of a hindrance, daydreaming while half-heartedly scrubbing the bath and applying the hoover with something less than rigor to our dust-prone carpet. Saturday afternoon - castle, ogre, wolf, swan, and Sunday I recovered.

"I'm off to see my study partner, Mum!" I called one Saturday midday, about to take off for my own private Wonderland.

"Just who is this person, or persons? You're seeing them every week! Why don't they come here? Do I get to met them?"

"Ah, it's someone quite new at school, called - ah - Alice," I said, that being a name that came to mind.

"And who are Alice's family? Where do they live?"

"Her family are the Cullens! She's Alice Cullen. They're near the woods - not far from us. I'll invite her one day. But we're working really hard, Mum," I said. She had no reason to be concerned - I'd done a science project on swans last week that had earned the top mark in the school. I was top in history as well, thanks to my long talks with a knowledgeable ogre about anything and everything.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Being closest, my mother opened it and stood back with a little gasp. A very tall silhouette took up the whole doorway, and a deep velvet voice said, "Hello, you must be Bella's mother. My name is Jacob and I've come to collect her. Did she mention she was seeing me today?"

My mother was spellbound, of course, and couldn't say a thing. Jacob walked in confident, lean, imposing, and awesomely human, and gave me a white-toothed smile, dripping with wolfishness.

"Oh, hey there Jacob. Yes, Mum, Jacob's walking me over to Alice _Cullen_'s house, aren't you, Jake?"

He was very smooth. "Yes, I am, Bella, that's right. We're going for a walk."

"Gracious, well that's nice, heavens, Bella don't be late, I'm just going outside to shift some paving stones," Renee said.

"Can I help you with that?" Jacob asked. My mother couldn't even look at him. His muscles looked like they were trying to climb out of his t-shirt.

"I'll make lemonade," I said, because I wasn't going to stand in the garden and watch him flexing. They went out and I took a bowl of lemons and a knife, and dealt with the whole lot very efficiently. The aroma was all around, the tang was clear and sharp, and the juice light of color, and non-threatening. I'd asked Jacob once about what Cullen ate, and he said Cullen only ate fruit that ran crimson, that dripped rivulets down his jaw like blood, as I had suspected. He ate fruit that looked as if he had had to kill it violently first.

With a pitcher full of lemonade made to my own spontaneous recipe, I ventured into the garden, and saw the incorrigible Jacob had taken his shirt off. He was copper-colored and looked like a body-builder and was glistening with perspiration. My poor mother was fanning herself, her face as pink as a peeled prawn.

"Thank you for your help, Jacob, Bella you are _studying_ this afternoon, aren't you?" she said. "With Alice?"

"Yes, Mum."

"I think I'll take a shower. It's awfully _hot_ today," she said, and went in without tasting the lemonade, which was just as well, as my special recipe lacked any sugar. Jacob took a great swig and spluttered noisily. I remained expressionless while he put his shirt back on.

"Come on, sweetheart," he said, holding out a hand to me, which I took, and his strides were so long I had to skip to keep up. "You know, we don't have to go to the castle. We could just pick flowers, or have a little lie down somewhere. Have you noticed anything in particular about our situation today?"

"You seem to be missing a tail," I replied.

"Precisely," he agreed. "Come to the woods, Bella."

It was the first occasion we'd been human at the same time.

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	8. Chapter 8

_A few animals are monogamous._

_Poignant fact no. 1: Wolves mate for life. It's true! Look it up! (author sheds a tear)_

_Poignant fact no. 2: So do swans! Equally true! (author sheds another tear)_

_BUT NOT WITH EACH OTHER! (author openly sobbing)_

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Eighth Bit

The weather was clement, the day fine, the temperature temperate, and the trees were gathering in intensity, shadows crowding at their trunks, and leaves jostling as Jacob made his suggestion. I hung back. My hand still felt the warmth of his, though he'd let me go.

"But Jacob, I want to go to the castle," I said.

"You do?" he asked. "Why? I'm here."

"Yes, but I love the castle, and I love being a swan, and I want to see Cullen as well as you."

Jacob's eyes narrowed, and I saw his disappointment. I wanted to smooth the frown from him, but I couldn't reach out, I didn't know what he'd do.

"You want your smile vanquished, and your hopes dashed, and your bright eyes brought to tears by having to bear the weight of an ogre's self-absorption?" he asked, disbelieving.

"I don't know what he says to you, but he's not like that with me," I declared.

"Okay, Bella. When he upsets you, you can come crying to me. But to get inside I have to take wolf form and jump. I know you can't see the wall, but it's right here in front of us. If you want to kiss me you'd better do it now."

I thought about it very seriously. He was tall - which is no reason to kiss someone. He was very handsome - that's not much of a reason, considering you kiss with your eyes closed. He was sweet - that was a bit of a reason, and funny, which was also a bit of a reason. He was persistent -

Seeing my hesitation, he sighed gently.

"Bella, I'm not proposing your immediate defloration, if that's what you're worried about, no matter what impression I may have given. Even if you asked me I'd say no, because it's something that has to be built up to. I just want to spend time with you."

"How did you find my house?" I asked, slightly side-tracked, but still thinking.

"Sniffed you out, baby," he said, tapping the side of his nose, waiting for me.

It occurred to me round about then that having to think about it meant I didn't want to kiss him.

"If you can see the wall does that mean you're not a virgin?" I asked. Where did _that_ come from? It was none of my business.

"Yes, I'm not," he said. "All the better for you, at a time and place that suits us both."

I turned from him in confusion and walked straight ahead, seeing no impediment, still thinking. In my mind's eye was a she-wolf, pretty and silver, slender and lithe, crouching on her belly, looking over her shoulder and snarling with pleasure as Jacob the wolf mounted her, his strong jaws holding her by the back of the neck, immobilizing her even as she arched her back beneath him. Then they broke apart, and their pelts split from neck to belly, their fur came adrift and they discarded it altogether revealing human forms, hers ivory and glistening and his copper red, and they moved together embracing, her thighs spread and inviting, her mouth eager, and I saw him plunging. The vision was disturbing, but it didn't hurt me.

I was in the meadow now, in its prettiness and peace, and with a grunt Jacob the wolf landed beside me.

"Cullen said you had a wolf girl-friend. What happened to her?" I asked him.

"I tried to bring her here but the wall wouldn't let her in," he shrugged. "I still see her around, but she wasn't the girl for me. I'm free. Well, not really. I'm kind of taken with a swan-person."

We got to the big door, which I now knew opened to near wherever Cullen was, and he was in the library. He hated and loved it with equal measure, being unable to turn pages, but he could imbibe the sense that hung heavy in the air, the atmosphere of wordiness and the faintest trace of ink, and he sat with head inclined, listening to the books whisper.

"How about some fresh air, Cully?" Jacob suggested, half-heartedly. "Bella wants to play kiss chasy. She's a minx, though, she deliberately runs slowly. I've had to kiss her dozens of times. Mind you, Cullen, you probably couldn't catch her if she stood still."

Cullen merely regarded him with a steady eye and didn't respond. I realized I had never seen him play anything other than word games.

"Do you want to play hide and seek?" I asked him.

"No, I can't hide from myself and I shouldn't think I could hide from you either," he answered. As I pondered this reply, he added, "I'm rather large."

Jacob hrrmphed.

"Don't you hide when your hour happens?" I asked Cullen.

"No," he answered slowly. "That's when I'm found."

Jacob let out a cough that sounded as though it contained the word '_Weirdo_'.

Cullen ignored him and mused, "Actually, no, that is when I am at my most lost. I lose myself," and Jacob coughed again, this time sounding as though he might just have been uttering the words '_Extreme loser_,' but Cullen's crypto-speak made perfect sense to me.

And we all sat a little longer. Jacob's eyes were on me, Cullen's eyes were on Jacob, and I had discovered a fascination with the middle distance. You can't alter your focal length when you look at nothing. Did you know that? I tried and tried.

Jacob sighed eventually, and padded quietly away, head down. I didn't realize until then that I had rejected him, but as he walked I saw hurt in his outline, and dejection in the usually aloft pennant of his tail, now lowered.

I turned stricken eyes to Cullen, who said, "His heart is not broken - bruised, yes. I saw what happened."

"You can see what he thinks. Can you see what _I_ think?" I asked. If he could, he could tell me, and then I would know.

"No," he answered.

"Why wouldn't the walls let Jacob's girlfriend in?"

"It's not that they wouldn't let her in, it was that she didn't follow him. She didn't jump," Cullen said, sounding almost as though he thought it was sad.

I left him there and went to look for Jacob, and it was a while before I found him. I had to walk beside the pagoda and through the pergola, past the plinth and alongside the pedestal, by the rockery and away from the rookery, and somewhere near the aviary but nowhere near the apiary.

He lay still sighing, ears swiveled back at my approach and a low rumble in his throat.

"Can we talk?" I said, sitting next to him.

"You talk, I'll listen," he answered.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted.

"Say you like me."

"I like you, but not in the way you want," I told him, and put my arm around him.

"Did you think I was rushing you?" he asked. "Were you nervous? Is that it? Did you think I was planning to ravish you, right then and there? I wasn't, and I wouldn't. You need never be nervous of me, Bella."

"No, that's not it. I'm sorry, Jacob. I'm sorry," I murmured, stroking his silky ears.

His shoulders rippled and shrugged, and he placed his cold wet nose to my cheek in a wolf's kiss.

"I'll wait, Bella. There's no-one else, is there? You would have mentioned it. I'll wait, and when you turn a hundred, you'll see that I've loved you for all that time, and then you'll come to me."

"You want a hundred year old girlfriend?"

"Time works differently inside the castle. If you spent more time here you wouldn't age. Cullen's well over a hundred, and I'm old enough to be your grandfather, even though I only look twenty. Why don't you come and live with us? You'll be the same."

"What about my mother?"

"Bring her too, there's plenty of room."

I still felt downhearted, and for the same reason he did. We were both sad because the feelings between us were uneven.

I left him there and wandered back, and he stayed behind, even though he'd told me not to walk around alone. Perhaps he trusted the castle with me now, perhaps he trusted his own ability to find me, now that he'd tracked me down outside.

Lost in sorrow, I continued, and when the change came I stumbled on, until I came to a sound. Notes swirled and swept, flew and flowed and I fell to the floor, paralyzed by beauty. Someone was playing a piano.

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I don't know about you, but I wouldn't turn down Jacob the cheeky wolf.


	9. Chapter 9

SM. E and B shippers, this may be what you've been waiting for.

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Ninth Bit

It seemed only a fraction of a moment, and yet a year or two later, footfalls sounded along the floor and Jacob appeared, arms reaching and urging me, "Bella, come outside, quick, if you want to, you don't have much time."

My silly squat legs were no good for speed, so I spread my wings, and the walls accommodated the breadth of them and granted me passage, my tall brave at my side knowing the way. I took the outside wall in a few sweeps, having grown to love my weight now, and the power my breast shot through my scapulars, and tertials and coverts. Being airborne was my greatest physical pleasure.

I glided to a shady rest less than a minute later where I had previously hidden clothes, and nestled myself, lost in part swanny-part human thought.

It must have been Cullen in there, playing.

Cullen - a warthog who could grow fingers and flay my heart, yet soothe and mend it with the next stroke of a key. Beneath red bristles beat blood surging with exquisite bliss and quiet, almost inexpressible elation, and it sang to me. My blood still danced with the unaccustomed rhythm, the cadence of a wild and free melody, the keening cry of a chained and yet unchained spirit.

It was Cullen, the beast, I had come to care for, and his music was an affirmation. His words told me plenty, told me all that words could, and his fingers told me the rest. I needed my head read.

"Bella, honey, I want to meet your Alice. Bring her around," my mother said during the following week. "Ah, and what about Jacob? Does he have uncles?"

"I don't know. I could ask him," I replied.

My poor single mother, alone in her solitude. No men. How about a wolf for you, mother? They won't bite, much.

I had decided I wouldn't go back to the castle. I thought I shouldn't go back. I thought Cullen should walk to China, or beyond. He was some sort of crazy cross between a hog and a wildebeest and various other forms there are no names for, and he was surreal and out of this world and I was an ordinary girl, not a sow.

On Saturday, there was a knock again at my tortured door, and I had given it enough hard and stern looks to prevent the entry of so much as a light breeze, but it admitted Jacob, and I was fit to cry.

"Hey, beautiful girl, come with me - what is it? What's the matter?" he said, solicitously, and I shook my head.

"I don't want to go to the castle today. How about the movies?" I said to him, and there erupted a tiny, hopeful smile on him, not just his face but all over, and I knew I was being wrong to suggest sitting in the dark with him when he might have the impression he could put his hand on my knee or thigh, or breast, or wherever he might want, and since we were under cover of artificial night I would permit it.

"You want to make out with me, don't you?" he said.

"No," I said, and, "No," again. "I want to lose myself," and it was like something Cullen had said. Damn Cullen.

"Can we just do stuff together until swan o'clock, and then go to the castle for the change, and I can fly around until I have to stop?" I asked.

From the look on his face I saw I'd hurt him badly for the second time.

"Bella, I will do anything you want," he said, then I turned my face, because the smallest, littlest, tiniest tear did actually fall from an eye of mine then, and I think the same thing may have happened to him.

We reached the meadow, and all the names you know of for green were there, thronging, and some of the other names from nature's palette as well, and they all chorused together in a sightful feedback of hello, and I saw the door. Through it was more meadow, and in the distance, Cullen's dark bulk amongst sunflowers and daisies.

"Why can you get in and out?" I cried to Jacob then, although I had already been told.

Wolves have amber eyes - knowing and flat, and gleaming with spark, though their eyebrows tell the truth. "Cullen says it's because I have a lightness of heart, and they're his walls, he should know," he growled.

"Then why is he here?" I said, my voice now a whisper, so as not to stir the flowers.

"Because his heart is so heavy and dark that he believes no-one could love him," Jacob said.

"Not so heavy, not so dark," I replied, because of Cullen's touch on the piano, and when we approached him I kept walking, I crossed the stems and sentinels of the sunflowers, the defilade and defence of the daisies, and I kept walking until I crashed, and he put his forearms up so that neither of us fell, and I raised my face to him and I kissed him on the snout, I didn't even know why.

Jacob whimpered loudly, and I heard him crashing away, and I drew back from Cullen, and his bristles started to fly. They shot out from him like arrows from bows. He grunted and staggered, as his hair fell off, and I took his hooves in my hands to try to support him, and his body shuddered and contorted, and I realised the change was happening, although it wasn't time, and the green parts of his eyes gave way to white as he appeared to be in agony. He shrank, juddering, although he was still much, much bigger than me, and he shook, and the hard substance of the cloven trotters I held softened, and segmented into long, slender fingers, and I looked straight ahead in confusion as his chest split open. I thought he would die, but underneath was another chest, this one pale but with a light swirl of hair, and dusky nipples on either side. I couldn't look up, and it probably wasn't the best idea to look down, but that's where my eyes went, following the trail of hair. I had never seen a naked man before, but whoops. Now I had. So that's what all the fuss was about.

We were still holding hands, and in slow motion, I raised my head and my gaze to Cullen's human face. What would I see?

He was glorious. I wanted to faint. Everything firm and hard but his soft, full lips, and his soft, full eyes. The red hair still sticking out, hog-fashion, but now topping a face that stopped my breath.

"Bella," he said.

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Oh Lord, I can't breathe. Can you?


	10. Chapter 10

what do three wishes seven, porosity, a lingonberry forest and a larkbell have in common? i've no idea.

Characters property of SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Tenth Bit

"Is the enchantment broken?" I asked him, breathless. My heart had stopped altogether from the shock of him, and wouldn't pump, and I had no oxygen, and I was fighting for my life.

"No," he said. "Startled, certainly. Shaken, definitely. Shifted, absolutely. I have no idea how it will operate now. But look about you, the walls stand."

I looked about, because it was preferable to looking at him, since looking at him made my eyes wobble. The wall was intact as ever.

"Can I still get out?" I queried, nervously. God forbid that I should stay a hundred years with a naked Cullen, more perfect than a Greek statue. I had told him things I had told no-one else. I had let him explore my mind. I had thought myself safe in the presence of a beast, but _this_ Cullen, with no tusks, and no hooves, who didn't snort and snuffle and grunt - _this_ Cullen couldn't possibly be safe.

"You can get out if you want to," he said.

"What happened?" I asked, and I decided quite happily to shut my eyes, because when I couldn't see him he was still my warthog.

"Don't you know your fairy stories, Bella?" he asked. "You kissed me and I was transformed. But I can see how uncomfortable you are. Come along, and I'll get dressed. I know I've got some clothes around here somewhere..."

I dared to peep, and he reached a hand as though he was grasping a doorhandle, and the air opened, he took me by the elbow along with him, and we were in his chamber, just like that. He bent to a drawer, and when he righted himself he held jeans and a shirt, not that I was looking.

"No velvet?" I asked.

"The Little Lord Fauntleroy outfits won't fit me anymore," he smiled. "Turn around, Bella, spin."

By the time I performed a pirouette, he was dressed, thankfully. He looked just like any other impossibly gorgeous boy, not that I'd ever seen one before, except really Jacob. Oh! Jacob!

"Is Jacob's spell undone too?" I asked.

"No, Jacob is a lycanthrope, and he will remain so. It's not a matter of magic with him. He may be able to be human inside the castle now though, without waiting for the hour. I don't know."

If I looked around the room at how eclectic it was, I would probably be able to keep talking, just like old times. His voice was different now that it wasn't resonating around that enormous echo chamber that had been the barrel of his chest, but it was still him, wasn't it? In there?

"Can I keep visiting you?" I asked a candlestick.

"Yes, please do."

"Will I still turn into a swan?" I asked the curtains.

"Yes, it is in your heart to fly."

"Oh, I've just remembered something," I said to a grecian urn. "I've told my mother I study on Saturday afternoons. I've said I have a study partner called Alice Cullen. I didn't want to lie, but I had to think of something. Mum has asked me to invite Alice over. So next Saturday I might not be able to come, because I have to find a girl and persuade her to pretend to be called Alice and to be my age, and to visit me."

"I have a sister called Alice, and she is your age, and she will be more than happy to visit you, I'm sure."

I whirled around and he was standing so close that some of my hair splashed him in the face. He blinked.

"You have a sister?" I blinked.

"Yes, I'll go and get her. But Bella, perhaps you could wait in the garden. She will show no mercy if she thinks I'm entertaining a girl in my bedroom."

He did that trick again where he turned an invisible door handle, and the air parted, and there, incongruously, I could see the inside of an ordinary house, nothing like the castle at all. I craned to get a better look, but he said, "She'll be very nice to _you_, but she'll make my life hell if she catches you in here," and he stepped into that other place and disappeared. The day couldn't get any stranger.

Wolf Jacob was outside lying in the sun when I got out there, stretched full length, luxuriantly relaxed and glossy, tongue lolling. He raised his head.

"So now you've seen Cullen in his full horror. He looked better before, didn't he?" he said.

"I wouldn't really like to comment," I answered. "He's bringing Alice to meet me. Do you know Alice?"

"Yes, she's kinda cute. I chased her down a rabbit hole once, and she's never forgiven me."

"Jacob, what's going to happen now? Now that Cullen's human?" I asked, sitting next to him. He put his chin on my thigh, and clearly thought he was getting away with a lot, which he was.

"I have no idea. It's up to you. You and I could go to your grandmother's house and I could get into her bed, and you could get in too..."

"Jacob," I warned.

"I'd have you crying wolf in no time..."

Voices turned me around, and there was Cullen with a girl, little and pretty and beaming with smiles.

"Hey, dogbreath," she said, noticing Jacob, whose head was in my lap.

"Fluffy," Jacob said, and I scrambled up so fast I wouldn't have been surprised to have dislocated his jaw.

"Alice, this is Bella," Cullen said, and I held my hand out for her to shake.

"So _that's_ why my dear brother has been disappearing every Saturday for hours and hours. None of us knew quite how or why, but the dissociative disorder was persisting and he was obviously in the castle, and now _here you are_! All is clear."

"Cullen, I don't understand," I said to him, nothing being clear.

"Nobody does, Bella. I don't understand myself. But - "

"You call him Cullen? Okay, well come on Bella let's go and chat. I've never been here, you know, it's quite an honor that he lets you in - so you're in final year? So am I! What subjects are you doing? I can tell you right now I study kissing, love, and the theory and practice of Jasper, and I'm happy to talk to you about all of them. Jasper's my boyfriend. Maybe you can meet him, but you can't do any study on him, and you certainly can't do any practice!"

Her laugh was tinkly, and if Cullen was an ogre, perhaps she was a sprite, and she talked and talked, "Who's _your_ boyfriend? Ha ha, what a silly question..."

Cullen whispered "She's unstoppable," unnecessarily to me as she swept me past him, and we went to admire the koi.

Her interrogation was very thorough and relentless. She fixed me with a sweet eye and fired questions I couldn't duck or evade or dodge. I told her everything about me, even things I hadn't remembered.

Then, "So, Bella," she asked, at the sundial. "How did you get in?"

"Through the walls," I shrugged.

"Edwar - ah - _Cullen_'s got those walls set at Impregnable. Hmm. Most interesting. Now, Bella, are you magic?"

"No, just ordinary, but I can turn into a swan. In fact it might happen quite soon," I said, glancing at the shadow thrown by the sundial's fixed axial gnomon. "Soon, as in right now."

The change started, and Alice watched in alarm, hovering and trying to help, but of course, no help was needed. Once I was fully anatidae, she was thrilled.

"I wish I could do that - _I'm_ the ordinary one - look at you! Can I watch you swim?"

I couldn't answer her questions any more.

"Can you _fly_?" she asked.

We played for an hour, until it was time for me to go. Jacob appeared then, nearly two feet taller than her. Alice's arms were around me, her soft pale cheek warm as a peach against my feathers.

"Oh, get off her, Pixie-pie, she'll bite you," he told Alice.

"No, she's _my_ friend now, Whiskers."

I raised my wings.

"She doesn't like people fighting over her. She wants everyone to get along," Jacob sighed. "So I guess that means you'll just have to put up with me, Ms Alice Cullen, and I'll have to put up with you."

I tilted a farewell at both of them, and made for the sky.

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	11. Chapter 11

Usual stuff applies, about non-ownership etc.

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Eleventh Bit

Then it was back to school, although I didn't see why I needed to go any more. I was the first in everything, the toppest of the top. I could probably have come first in the subjects I didn't even take. For instance, I didn't attend trigonometry class, but I bet I knew more about cotangents than anyone else alive, because Cullen had told me. My mother may have suspected darkly that I had been abducted by aliens and given a brain transplant, although she didn't say so.

And Mum knew that this Saturday my bestie, Alice would be coming over.

"What's she like?" Renee asked.

"Super-cute, friendly, asks lots of questions, bright, funny, lovely," I replied.

"Does she have any uncles?"

"Um, don't know."

"Well, good. I'm glad you have her as a friend. And what's the story with Jacob?" Mum said.

"There isn't a story with Jacob," I responded.

"Come on, Bella, he obviously likes you. Has he asked you out?" Mum continued. "He seems very nice."

She might not think he was quite so nice if I told her the sort of things he said to me on a regular basis. Did I tell you about the time I had been minding my own business, on my elbows and knees looking at some snails I'd found in the statuary? One was zebra-striped, one was leopard-spotted, and the third was both. I was gazing in awe at their micro-world when he said behind me, "That's a very provocative position for you to be in, Bella. Is it an invitation? I said nothing kinky, but if you insist..."

You'd think he'd be every mother's nightmare.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, and I was torn in two. I was really looking forward to seeing Alice, but having her over to visit me meant I wouldn't see Cullen. I wondered if I could do both next weekend. You can't have your cake and eat it too, but can you have your friend and eat her brother too? I did not just say that.

Alice came by, lovely as anything, and Mum lapped it up, fussing about, scones galore.

"What are you girls going to work on today?" she asked us, and I hoped Alice wasn't going to recite the list of her favourite topics, and bless her, she didn't.

"Oh, I've downloaded some previous exam papers and we're going to go over them," she chirped like a sparrow.

"Sounds very helpful," Mum said.

"Oh yes, well it's good to be prepared," Alice chattered like a budgie.

"Well, you girls have a great afternoon, I'm going out," Mum said.

"Oh, we will, and I hope you do too," Alice chirruped like a canary.

"You're going _out_?" I asked.

My own mother blushed at me, nodding. "Yes, I'm going to play golf with someone I've met called Phil."

"Is he anybody's uncle?" I asked her retreating back.

Alice and I did the tests, and she knew everything and I knew everything. She painted my toenails and drew complicated curlicues on the backs of my hands with a henna pen, and she performed a feat of wizardry with a mascara wand that deepened my eyes, giving them a mystery that mystified me, and she said, "Let's go visit you-know-who. He'll be_ nuts_ if we don't."

"Who?" I said, hope springing eternal.

"Oh, you know, Edwar - Cullen."

"Sure, okay. Can you tell me anything about him?" I asked, superbly nonchalant.

"No, he's very private. I don't want to discuss him. You can ask him yourself. Let's you and me have a friendship that's not part of a triangle," she answered, which was fair enough.

Through the woods, Alice skipped like a child and fluttered like a butterfly, and I just put one foot in front of the other, running.

"There's a stile there for me!" she called in delight, once we were over the field and the meadow and the pasture. There was Jacob, standing on his hind legs to lick me, and she grimaced, "Oh, get _down_, Rover," at him, and Jacob said, "You think I should go down on Bella, little Alice?" Snorting, she threw a dandelion at him, and we were all laughing when we pushed through Cullen's magic door and found him frowning in the foyer. When he saw us his frown was chased clean away to parts unknown by what looked like pleasure.

Alice told Jacob he had fleas and he smelt and the two of them argued all the way to somewhere else.

"I thought I wouldn't see you today," Cullen whispered to me. He was in his human form.

"Well, I do like the swan aspect of coming here," I stammered.

"Just that?" he questioned.

"I love what you've done with the place," I stuttered.

"Anything else?" he inquired.

"I enjoy our talks," I stumbled, and my head had sunk further and further with each statement so that it had gone beyond my chest, it was somewhere near my navel.

"You seem more nervous of me now than when I was a beast," he remarked quietly. "You had the courage to kiss the beast."

Time I went outside. I thought I could hear the day.

And outside was azure and fine and calm and nothing like the sense inside that something was going on with my pores, anxiousness was leaking out of them and puddling in gloop on the floor for me to step in and absorb again so that it was like the water cycle, and something I could never be rid of. Perhaps the sun could chase away my shadows.

"Come and see the dragonflies," Cullen offered, and we watched dragonflies for ages as they swooped and darted, in their iridescence. They danced about his head and flew into his pretty mouth and out of his ears, making his eyes light up as they went through, and gifting them with happy gold. Alice and Jacob turned up, truced, and it was all very pleasant.

Then Alice said she wanted to see me again, and Jacob said he'd like to see more of me, which wasn't quite the same thing, and Alice went home to see Jasper. When the Hour came, Jacob and I had races on the lake, him in a canoe with a paddle and me streamlined and feathered. When I won he splashed me. When he won I capsized him. I was so busy with splashing and capsizing that I didn't notice I didn't know where Cullen was until it was too late to look for him.

"Well, I do like your Alice," Mum said that night.

"And do you like your Phil?" I asked.

"Yes. He got a hole in one today," she said. "That's a golfing term, Bella."

"Of course," I said.

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Reviews, honey-roasted cashew nuts, souvenir teaspoons, alsations, I'll take anything.


	12. Chapter 12

Characters owned by SM, grumble.

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Twelfth Bit

Exams approached, inexorably. I studied, more or less, and I saw Alice every Saturday, but we didn't talk about school. I was fast becoming the world's second greatest expert on Jasper, even without practicing. I saw Jacob and Cullen, in that order. Mum saw Phil.

The bothersome exams took two weeks, and on the middle Saturday, my mother in her kindness and wisdom decided it was time for me to meet her suitor. She had me go into the city with her for the entire day. Phil was nice enough, I suppose, as prospective step-fathers go, and she giggled and blushed like a schoolgirl with a crush which is very odd behaviour to observe in your mother. You'd think they would have gotten all of that out of their systems before (or while) you were conceived.

When we got home well into the evening, there was something on the doorstep. By the porchlight, I could see what looked like a very large drop of blood. It was a tamarillo.

"Who on earth could have left that there?" Renee wondered.

I knew it had been a wolf, but I knew it hadn't come from him. He was running his master's errands.

The next Saturday I was free as a bird, and was heading off down the laneway outside our house when a silhouette came out of the trees and ran to me, turning into Jacob on the way. He picked me up and swung me round and round carousel-style till I was dizzy, and he had his cheek in my neck and his face in my hair laughing at me. I suspect there was some surreptitious kissing going on in there, too.

"Put me down before I throw up on you!" I scolded, but the nightingales were open-throated in a carillon chorus and the beautiful day was made more so by my happiness. The daisies were smiling.

"Where were you last week?" he asked. "We all cried, you know. Cullen went back to being morose, and he's been bearable the last few weeks, so that was just awful. Alice was upset, and I didn't know what to do with myself."

"I went out with my mother."

He held my hand as we walked along, and I was so pleased to see him that I didn't pull away.

"Did you miss me?" he asked.

"I missed everyone at Castle Cullen."

"Bella, will you be my girlfriend?"

That dimmed the day, because tenacity is one thing, so is perseverance, and so is persistence. Keeping on asking the same thing despite refusals is something else. I hated turning him down.

"No," I said.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Composing my features into a frown that I hoped was kind, I said, "Jacob, once you said to me that you love the sun and the blue sky. To me, it's as though you _are_ the sun and the blue sky, and I love you for it. But I am not in love with you, and I can't be your girlfriend. I'm sorry, and that's that."

He frowned right back, from his height. "Now, now lovely girl, why would you turn down someone who wants to adore you? Is there somebody else? Who is it? Oh, _no_..."

His dismay meant he'd figured it out. I'd been trying to hide from it myself, to tell the truth, and I was doing such a good job, I barely knew what my own secret was. But if Jacob could see it today, Alice would know straightaway, because she was very perceptive. That would be bad enough, but if Jacob knew, someone else would know in the amount of time it takes a mind-reader to read a mind.

"Jacob, don't even think about it," I pleaded.

"Don't worry, I won't. I can't. I'm banishing it right now," he said. He let go of my hand then.

When we got to the special door, it opened onto one of the corridors, dressed in grey.

"Oh, _great_," Jacob muttered, now a wolf, "I'll leave you to it."

He padded away, and I waited for a moment, but only a moment, because just as I saw where I was, the music started. I was outside the piano room. I sat with my elbows on my knees and my forehead on my forearms, and inhabited the sounds that drew my skin out into goosebumps, threw my mind into reverie and tilted my heart on its axis, making it spin in another direction altogether. Cullen's fingers were weeping, and the piano was weeping too.

After the playing stopped he came out, and found me.

"Bella!"

He sank to his knees so fast he nearly left a crack in the air.

"I thought maybe you weren't going to come any more!" he exclaimed.

"I'm here," I answered.

We wandered along, we found the mirrored hall and walked there, and it looked a little absurd - him so handsome, and me so ordinary. But I had a soft light from within somehow, and there was a quiet radiance about me, barely discernible, but there nonetheless. Maybe love shines.

"Come and see the damselflies," he said, and we went to the hydrangea house and watched the tiny fluttering pretties - miniature girls no bigger than my thumb, with wings. They whispered to him, and sat on his shoulders and flirted until he blushed, and they scowled at me and shook their heads and fingers. They pulled on his already upright hair, tugging it to stand waywardly, and the wanton little things even pressed their kisses onto his lips.

"I think that's more than enough deplorable damselflies. They have no decorum," he said, embarrassed, and out we came again. "Alice will want to see you. I'll call her. Will you wait here?" he asked, and disppeared.

When Alice came, she forgave me last week's absence with a hug, and we discussed our exams. Then she put her head on one side and said, "Bella, is there anything _else_ you want to tell me?"

I mumbled, "Not in particular," and I asked when I could meet Jasper.

"That's up to you," she replied, and I said "Oh, soon then, please."

An hour of talking rushed faster than an hour would normally take, and Jacob mooched up and she offered to find a nice stick so he could play fetch, and he snapped his teeth at her. Cullen suggested we could sit in the arms of a fig tree and watch them.

They cavorted below us, and I watched, brooding. I had a crush on Cullen so heavy I could sink under the weight of it, and he always seemed pleased to see me, but I just couldn't tell if there was any reciprocity. I didn't know if he wanted me back. And because I didn't know, I was too scared to say anything, or ask anything, or do anything. The only other boy I knew was Jacob, and I certainly couldn't go to him for advice. My only female friend was Alice, and she'd already made the triangle friendship remark. Maybe I would have to google "How do I tell if a guy remotely likes me, even to the slightest degree?"

"Would you like to see the fireflies?" he asked then, interrupting me not looking at him.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Well, we can only see them at night. You'll have to wait until next week. And you'll have to ask your mother if you can stay over," he said.

Dear Google, if a guy asks me to stay over so we can see fireflies, does that mean he likes me?

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Dear Google, if a fanfic writer asks for reviews does that mean she gets them?

Dear readers, can you please review me?

Now we sit and wait...


	13. Chapter 13

ske7gchh2z jwuek4 jd - SM

dvrg sksjf a asbva; vbahrui476sk 8 - Not me

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Thirteenth Bit

What was I going to tell my mother?

"Mum, there's someone I really like - he's kind of male, as it happens - and he's about a hundred years old and he lives in a castle nearby that you probably haven't noticed, and recently he exploded in front of me and most of his hair fell out and then he was naked, and he's asked me to spend the night with him so that we can look at bugs. Is that okay with you?" I asked.

I was asking the mirror, which replied, "Certainly darling. That sounds lovely."

Or I could say, "Mum, can I have a sleepover sort-of at Alice's? It's her brother's place, but you can get to her house from there, so that's practically the same, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. Off you go and I hope you have a very nice time," said the mirror, only of course it was entirely the wrong reflection agreeing with everything I said.

I found the real Renee, and took the plunge. "Mum, I have to tell you something. Alice has a brother, and I really, really like him."

"I knew it! You've got that look about you, and you're so dreamy. I knew you liked someone! And since you kept denying it was Jacob, I figured maybe there was some connection with Alice, because every Saturday you glow," she said delightedly. Mothers, eh?

"He's invited me to spend the night this Saturday," I continued. "Not _with_ him, I mean at his house."

"Hmm," she responded. "Well, Bella, you're old enough to drive, and you're nearly old enough to vote, and I guess you're old enough to make some of your own decisions. I trust you. Trust yourself."

I actually wished the week could go slower, because it hurtled. I swear, Wednesday and Thursday didn't even happen, and Friday only had a few hours in it. I blinked after lunch, and it was already Saturday morning.

Then as soon as I had finished my cereal and tamarillo, it was afternoon. I didn't eat Cullen's tamarillo, of course, because I had very complex feelings towards it. His hands had touched it, so I couldn't just scrape the insides out and discard the skin in the compost. But what if eating it would bind me to his strange world forever? I kissed it and put it next to my bed, and found Peruvian tamarillos in the city and taught myself to eat them. They were piquant and dark and earthy and made me think of him.

Unusually, Jacob didn't come - no scampering enormous hairy puppy threading himself underfoot and then once he'd tripped me, trying to get his long tongue in my ear. I crossed the meadow on my own, and went through the door.

Cullen was in the meadow on the other side, and he held his hands out to me, but dropped them back to his sides before I could take them. Mine felt a bit sweaty anyway.

"Shall we lie around in the sunshine?" he said, and he was so different, this Cullen, to the beast with his piercing questions and penetrating observations and his sombre twists and sober turns.

"Is the Ogre still in you?" I asked him, as we faced each other horizontally, and he rolled onto his back, eyes closed, hands above his head. His shirt was pulled up over his belly, and I didn't look, I didn't, I didn't.

"Yes, I still transform during the Hour, as you do. I think he'll always be there somewhere, whether I transform or not."

"Can't you ever be free of him? Can't the enchantment ever be completely broken?" I asked.

"That's up to - oh, never mind. I don't know that I want to be rid of him completely. He's very thoughtful, don't you find? I know he can be melancholy, but now that I'm not completely possessed by him he gives me a bit of balance."

Some more lying around, and we went to look for the others. Jacob appeared to be skulking and sulking, and I wondered if Cullen knew anything about it. Alice dropped by for kisses, but she was on her way out to a party with Jasper and couldn't stay long.

I showed Cullen that I could eat a tree-tomato, and his smile was very slow. I got its blood on my chin, and he started and stared, and found a handkerchief in his pocket, which he gave me wordlessly. I handed the thing back, stained and he put it in his pocket, still staring.

"It's nearly the Hour," he said. "Go. I'll meet you."

I swanned, he beasted, and Jacob manned, and the three of us found one another in the arboreum.

"What shall we play, games master?" Cullen snorted to Jacob, and Jacob produced a ball from nowhere at all, and said "Volleyball." He swatted the ball using a lot of force, but you can't outswat something seven feet tall with more muscles than a herd of bulls, and Cullen swatted it back. Jacob slammed it, Cullen slammed it back.

"Are you trying to kill me?" he grunted.

"Maybe," Jacob said. "Death by ball. Harsh."

"Why?" Cullen gruffled.

"Because you're too cheerful. I prefer you with angst and your bitterness. Get unhappy already."

"Kill me, then, if you want to."

"Don't be stupid."

I didn't want any more of this exchange, and I left to go swimming, which always soothed me. I glided in, making a luge track of my point of entry, and the glassy surface of the lake parted behind me in the v of my wake. As ripples danced to the shore, I toyed with some pondweed and pondered my ever-changing situation, my feet teasing the shubunkin.

After the change I got dressed again, and when Jacob found me he was livid.

"_What are you doing still here_?" he demanded.

"I'm staying the night," I replied.

"_Where_?"

"In one of the rooms."

"I'll stay with you," he muttered.

"No, Jacob, you won't," I said firmly, and went to look for Cullen, going the wrong way, retracing, and treading the castle's labyrinth of a layout in a big irregular circle. I found him, even without the help of Ariadne's thread, back where I'd started.

"Dinner's ready," he said. "I hope you like carpaccio."

What was it with him and food that looked like blood?

After dinner Jacob disappeared outside somewhere, and Cullen took me to the cave in the grotto. It was the stillest place I had ever been, as well as the deepest. Droplets of water fell like notes from a far wilder piano than Cullens' and they reverberated in a cascade so true the hairs inside my ears vibrated. The black was utter and complete, dense and opaque, and I couldn't see a thing. Cullen led me by the hand as we proceeded.

"There is nowhere to fall, and you can't bash your head, so don't be afraid," he whispered to me, and his voice came back a hundred times, the returns diminishing with repetition.

Something occurred to me, then.

"Cullen, isn't it night all day in here?" I whispered.

"Yes."

"So you could have brought me here anytime to see the fireflies?"

"The fireflies aren't in here, Bella. I brought you to see something else."

A glimmer appeared ahead of us, followed by a shimmer, and the air grew paler, and I began to be able to see that we were in a passage widening slowly, and we emerged into a huge chamber, with stalactite chandeliers hung from the glittering ceiling, and rocks the blue of glaciers around the edges of a pool.

"The Capricorn comes here. She's an oracle," he whispered, as it seemed that to disturb this cathedral quiet with a full voice would be sacrilege. He took something from his pocket, and curiously, it was a fig. Perhaps he'd picked it yesterday while I wasn't looking at him? He placed it on a rock at the pool's verge.

Something stirred in the glass water, and a figure streaming with liquid crystal emerged, with large rounded horns the colours of titanium, and eyes like the light sprayed from a prism. She was shaggy and bearded, with hair curling down her throat towards her breast, and the muzzle of a chamois. She had spindly, knobbly front legs like a deer's, but the nether half of her body turned to gleaming scales, ending in a fishtail with a double truncate.

She put out a very long tongue and tongued the fig with a sensuousness that made my knees quiver, and she nibbled at it with questioning lips, before she picked it up altogether and chewed it slowly, with the relish of an epicure. Her rainbow eyes were swooning, and when she turned them on me I was so affected I was near swooning too.

"Thank you for the gift. Do you have a question?" a deep, smooth, soft, smooth deep voice asked.

"Go on, ask her something," Cullen prompted.

Only one question came to me. "What's going to happen?" I croaked, my voice little and unsure and breaking. I had to be as vague as possible, I couldn't ask what I really wanted to, with the object of my true question standing right there next to me.

"That's up to you," she answered.

I realised then that Jacob and Alice had both said the same thing to me when I had asked them questions, and Cullen had half said it. Why was everyone so cryptic? Was it a coincidence, or did they all know something I didn't?

I stamped my foot in annoyance, and the capricorn disappeared with a flip of her tail, and a splash of cobalt. There was azure in there, and periwinkle, and ultramarine, and in the light of all of those shades Cullen was watching me.

I turned my back on him.

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	14. Chapter 14

Characters owned by Stephenie Meyer and any resemblance to persons living or dead is unbelievable

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Fourteenth Bit

Of course, I couldn't proceed with any alacrity, being quite unable to see the terrain. I had to wait for Cullen to come show me the way out of the black hole.

It was sunset outside, and the sky so lit with magnificence I forgot I was cross and just felt burstible, like I felt when he played his piano. I hadn't been at the castle at this time of day before and the sun didn't drop quickly like it did outside, it hung suspended, slower than a comet. The pennants of pink and gold stayed above where they were, streaking everything beneath with their caress.

"We've still got an hour to go, and we can do anything you want. I have a chequerboard lawn and tumbleweed shaped into draughtsmen and you blow them where you want them to go. I can assemble the crickets into an orchestra, or a chamber ensemble. I can call the birds to give an aerial display. We can walk, or dance, or talk, or read, or be. It's up to you," he said. The next time anyone said that to me, I decided I would scream good and loud. I felt on edge, on tenterhooks, and on fire.

"Draughts," I stated, and I stalked around the grass board, applying every aspect I knew of military strategy. I'd recently read Sun Tzu's The Art of War, since Cullen had mentioned it one day, and my moves were masterly and devastating. The state I was in, I could blow hard enough to knock down a house built of bricks and mortar, or so softly that a candle flame six inches away wouldn't even flicker. I so won, and he was taken aback.

"Remind me not to pit an army against you," he said.

"Don't pit an army against me," I growled.

A little later, when the dark had arisen and descended we went to the riverbank and sat on the mossy slope and opposite us hundreds of flitting sparks started to blink in unison - red, yellow and green, like gentle fireworks. They dived and spun, in a carnival of twinkles. I watched it and loved it and lived it and drank it.

"Cullen, it's beautiful, thank you for bringing me. And thank you for taking me to the cavern. And thank you for all the things you show me," I said to him, leaning my head against him, so solid and warm.

"Thank _you_," he said back, his voice low.

I thought he might put an arm around me and hug me to his chest, but he didn't. I thought he might put those long slender fingers to my chin and tilt my face to his for my first kiss, but he didn't. He wouldn't even kiss my hair, the way Jacob had. Was that what everybody meant when they said it was up to me? That I would have to take the initiative with him because everybody else knew that he wouldn't?

Or did he just not do those things simply because he didn't want to?

We went back to his sumptuous living room, and he offered me elderflower wine, and I had some, although I never drank alcohol. I was tired now, pleasantly although sadly, and I didn't know if I'd done anything wrong, or anything right. He was very quiet and just watched me and I closed my eyes and recaptured the insects, using them to prevent the tearfall that would happen without them there.

"Where am I to sleep?" I asked him.

"Next to my room, along the corridor. Jacob sleeps at my door, but he will want to be near you, as there is a spectre that haunts these halls in the night. It can't pass Jacob, and he will want to guard both you and me, so we need to be near one another," Cullen said.

He walked me to the next room, and stopped at the door, and once I had crossed the threshold he left me, alone by myself with no-one but me to talk to. Ok. So no romance for Bella tonight, and at this rate, probably not ever, unless my heart could change its mind, and my mind could have a change of heart about who I wanted.

I catalogued how I felt, and put it in alphabetical order, so I could reference it quickly. Anxious, angsty, baffled, bewildered, confused, confounded, depressed, disappointed, exasperated, exhausted, forlorn, frustrated, grumpy, grizzly, hapless, helpless and hopeless, injured, impatient, juggled, juxtaposed, nothing for k, lovelorn, lost, mopey, misunderstood... I abandoned it then because dwelling on it would only draw me further down, and would you want to be down if you were spending the night in a castle chamber fit for a princess? The bed was four-poster, and massive, with carvings on the posts depicting - I went closer for a better look - swans! Yes, all sorts of swans doing all sort of things, swimming, gliding, flying, waddling, preening. There was even one in a heap on the ground with its neck in a knot.

The whole room was just as strange and beautiful as everywhere else in Cullen's strange and beautiful home. There was a painting of castle walls towering behind a wolf and a girl walking through a meadow. There was a painting of a swan in flight, long neck pointing in the direction it was going, which was into the sky, away from the ground, and over a wall. There was a painting of an ogre and a girl, sitting at a tiny table talking. A painting of an ogre and a girl dancing. A girl and a very tall black-haired boy standing next to the woods, him with his hand held towards her, her not taking it. A girl kissing an ogre on its frightening, dreadful snout. Two girls, sitting at a table surrounded by books and paper, laughing together. A capricorn licking a fig. They were the Bella chronicles, and the next frame was empty, although perhaps with a shadow of a suggestion of a hint of an image in there. I peered, but I couldn't make it out.

I was sleepy by now, and changed into my pyjamas which I just happened to have handy, and I climbed into the bed. It was pillowing and billowing and I fell to a dreamless sleep.

Except it wasn't quite dreamless.

I dreamed Cullen needed me.

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	15. Chapter 15

all thoughts, feelings, expressions, identities, descriptions, words and actions are fragments of my fevered imagination, but I did borrow the names of these characters from SM

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Fifteenth Bit

Really, I did. Something jolted me and I found myself bolt upright in bed, somewhere between sleeping and waking, and through the foot-thick density of stone between mine and Cullen's room, I felt his distress call. It was surrounded by a paralyzing creeping cold that would smother him and overcome him and never let him go if I couldn't get to him in time.

I leapt across the room and discovered I had a wolf at my door, a giant one that I tripped over and fell on, but somehow didn't disturb. Considering if a dog feels the wheel of a cart with its whisker he's quick enough to get away before the wheel can roll onto him this was incredible, but I clambered over Jacob. He would be somewhat aggrieved later to hear he had five-foot four and eight stone of girl flat on top of him and all he'd done was snuffle, but right then I didn't have time to think about it.

In Cullen's chamber I could see him abed, stiff and resistant. Before him was a cloudy apparition, no doubt the spectre, hissing with chill and wavering, looking for a way in. It was huge and overwhelming, and took no notice of me. Its sole target was the shivering boy in the bed before it, and its nebulous arms swept wide, the fingers three feet long and inescapable.

Cullen was terrified, and the thing liked his fear, and drew closer, becoming denser and collecting itself with each of Cullen's rasping breaths. It looked rapacious and merciless, ravenous and menacing, and its eyeless glare saw nothing. When I yelled at it, there was no response. It had no senses but the sense of will to harm.

"Bella, run, and wake Jacob on your way past, but get out of here," Cullen said urgently to me, but I was having none of that. I lunged straight through the shifting gaseous creature to stand between it and Cullen, and I could feel that the thing was made of dark and ugly and cold and upset. It was wholly negative, and my heart told me it could only be combated by its opposite.

Facing the thing, I summoned the fireflies who had helped ward off my sorrow only a few hours ago with their winking friendliness. I filled all the spaces between them with the beauty and warm fire of the day's sunset. I found the joy of my strength in flight, my wonder at the ceaseless marvels of Cullen's home, and the invigoration of talks with him about history and art and politics. Invoking the most powerful defense of all, I spread my arms with fiercely and gently bright love, and with it I drew a dome about us both, me and Cullen - a transparent, opalescent, pearlescent shield.

Still the creature came on, because it didn't know that the power of my caring could keep Cullen safe. It tried to get in but there weren't any gaps, and when it touched the glow of me its hand turned to vaporous dust and disappeared. This didn't make it stop, it just kept coming and more of it was destroyed. Either wasn't very clever, or it had no instinct for self-preservation, or its primary directive of invading Cullen was all-powerful, but it continued to advance, and more of it crumbled and dissolved until there was nothing left.

Afterwards, I let the shield fall like a dropping veil, and sat on the bed.

"How did you do that, you extraordinary girl?" Cullen asked. He put his arms around me, and his heart was racing and he bowed his head over mine, and whispered, "You saved me."

My heart raced too, though whether from what had just happened, or from his nearness I wasn't entirely sure. I shrugged in his hold, just a little, because I didn't want to disturb his arms.

"I don't know," I said truthfully, my voice a little muffled against his chest. "But anyone would have done it."

"No they wouldn't, because they couldn't. You're the only person besides Jacob who has ever gotten in to the castle. I don't know why it couldn't keep you out. Nobody could have done what you just did."

"Jacob said you find skeletons in the maze," I told him.

"He was kidding. A lot of what Jacob says is kidding - you know that now don't you? Except the stuff about him wanting you, that's all true. He half accepts that you don't return his feelings to the same extent, and his heart is big enough that he will love again, and completely too, although he will love you for the rest of his life."

Cullen sighed. I thought he wanted to say more, but he didn't. I wanted this moment to last as long as it could, and I didn't know if he would continue to hold me unless we kept talking.

"Is that all the excitement for tonight?" I asked him, and could have kicked myself. What a silly question!

"Yes," he answered.

"Can I sleep with you?"

I could have kicked myself again. My skin grew pink and flushed as the sunset I had so recently conjured, as though it had left smudges on my cheek. I was very glad my face was hidden in his shoulder.

"You can _stay_ with me. I'll sleep in the chair," he said, making no move to move.

I stayed with him, and he held me until I was almost asleep again, and then he eased me down to his pillow, and tucked my legs and feet under the covers - and wouldn't you think he would kiss me goodnight tenderly as though I were a little child, to wish me sweet dreams?

He went and sat in the chair with his lips coming nowhere near me or mine and I registered the loss of him with a whimper of protest, but shield making is so arduous and energy-consuming an activity that the room faded about me and my first ever night in a boy's bedroom was spent with the boy well out of desire's way.

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	16. Chapter 16

It's the end of the road. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported me on this mad journey, thank you to my parents and friends, I owe you everything, and my english teacher in sixth grade, you have been my guiding light, and to everyone who voted for me, and to the academy and gush gush gush, sob, no really, and thank you to the lady in the fruit and vege shop, and the guy who mows the lawns, whatever your name is, gush, and to just _everybody_!

And thank you to Stephenie Meyer.

**The Beast and Bella Swan**

Sixteenth Bit

I decided that I would wake up before Cullen, so that I could get an eyeful without him knowing it. It had seemed whenever I tried to look at him his eyes were already on me, and I had never had enough of simply gazing at how beautiful he was. My plan didn't go according to plan though, because even though I set my internal alarm to fifteen minutes before eye-opening, he was ahead of me, and I turned my head on the pillow to find myself already in his thoughtful peridot gaze.

"It's rude to stare," I grumbled, because he'd beaten me to it.

"I apologise," he said, although he didn't look sorry.

"What was that thing last night?"

His eyes, ever-contemplative, now turned inward. "The spectre of self-loathing. It has been after me for some time, but Jacob has always kept it away. It cannot come near him, he having no predisposition towards its proclivities. It doesn't always come, indeed, I haven't seen it so much of late, since you reduced my beastliness, but the one night Jacob was otherwise occupied - there it was."

"What did it want?"

"A soul to turn cold. Its kind inhabit the vulnerable, they finds a chink and float in, compressing themselves for the entry, and expanding again once inside to become all consuming, and to chill their host with dread and morbidity. Once one has a hold it is very hard to banish. I must thank you again, Bella. Daily Jacob saves me from one thing and another, and it seems you have that ability too. It is the hearts you both have."

I sat up. My hair is long, and had become very tangled in the night, and I pulled hanks of it in front of my eyes as I combed it with my fingers, glancing at him in his pre-occupation.

"Why do you think it came last night?" I asked.

Those eyes, that glance, that gaze were back to have their effect on my skin and breath, everything I was trying to hide behind tumbles of hair.

"It is privy to my thoughts," he began. "It came because it knew I do not believe myself worthy of what you would give me."

"And what is that?" I demanded, trembling. He couldn't possibly know my secret.

A silence stretched between us tangibly, I might have reached out and touched it, it was realler than last night's events.

"What you used to defeat it," Cullen said. "Love," and I decided to go barefoot marathon sprinting in my pyjamas. It was a sport I'd just invented. I leapt for the door, and crashed into Jacob, and fell flat on top of him again. We rolled, and he was as heavy as a giant wolf, and as hairy as one, too.

"Ah, kiss me quick, Bella, then kiss me slow," he murmured with hot breath, but I shook him off and got up and ran.

Cullen called after me, but Jacob stopped him with a warning growl, no doubt wanting an explanation as to why I was fleeing from him, and I wrenched open a door and carried on, speeding through the swannery and the piggery, the cattery and the rattery, the Forest of Serenity and the Woods of Tranquility, the green lane and the golden mile, and when I thought I might have expelled a fraction of the agitation out of me I had to stop, having set the first ever record for marathon sprinting in nightwear with no shoes.

None of the agitation was gone though, I discovered when I tried to calm down. I was in the silver blue green gold summer winter spring autumn meadow and wondering what on earth I was going to do now, when Cullen caught up with me, frowning.

"Why did you run from me?" he asked.

"Why did you come after me?" I countered.

He was in his pyjamas, too. We stood there staring, and I knew why I was so scared of what he knew about me - it was because he never said anything or did anything to indicate that he liked me back. Except for always being pleased to see me. Except for giving me anything I asked for, and doing anything I asked him to. Except for always taking an interest in what I said, or did, or thought. Except for making his piano cry when he thought I wasn't returning. And taking me to see the capricorn, and the tiny flying fancies and all the other wonders in this wondrous place.

And then I remembered him saying that my kiss had transformed him. I remembered him saying that I was nervous of him as a human, but I'd had the courage to kiss the Ogre. I remembered him saying that his enchantment wasn't quite broken.

Something came to me, not so much an idea, or an understanding, as a feeling, or even an inkling. Something to do with everyone saying that what happened next would be up to me. I remembered thinking that he wouldn't take the initiative. Maybe he _couldn't_ - maybe that was part of the magic, maybe all he could do was wait, and follow me if I fled, and hope that I would come back every time I left, and hope that one day I would come to care enough, and be brave enough to -

I moved towards him, and kissed his cheek. His eyes flew wide, and he responded with a quiver and a shake. I kissed his other cheek and his eyes softly shut and he reacted with a shiver and a quake. I pulled him to me and kissed his forehead gently, and he trembled and shuddered and his eyelids fluttered and he whispered my name, so quietly I knew I would have to be closer to his mouth to get it from him, and I heard ancient creaking and grinding sounds coming from near and far, and dimly through my peripheral vision I saw a great stone work its way out of the wall behind us and thud to the ground, followed by another.

I didn't watch the stones though, or dwell on them, because I kissed Cullen on the lips, and he put his hands to my upper arms to hold me, and he received the kiss motionless, but with half a sigh and half a gasp, and then as he kissed me back the walls crashed and smashed. They hit the ground and turned to dust - all of Cullen's walls came down.

I knew Jacob galloped up to us because I felt him, and because he howled and wheeled away having found us embracing, but Cullen's kiss was on my mouth and in it, my first kiss was my sweetest and my longest and there was everything in it that he could play upon the piano, and all the enchantment he had woven about himself was coming through his lips to me, and I surrounded us with the shines that I could invoke, and time passed differently, so it was days before we broke apart.

"Where are we?" I said, gazing about. We were in a field bordered by the woods near my house, no castle in sight, no rearing drystone walls, no magic wormhole door.

"We are in your town, where you live. My house is just around the corner," he said, smiling. You should have seen the tenderness.

"House? What do you mean? Where's the castle? What has happened?"

"No more castle, Bella, it was self-protection, and you've knocked it clean down. I couldn't protect myself against you. The enchantment is well and truly broken. You loved me as an ogre, and you love me as me - we still have magic, the both of us. You have quite a lot of your own, you know, but now we can live ordinarily. I can wish up the castle if we want to visit it, I still contain it, but it contains me no longer. Do you want to come and see if Alice is home?"

He pointed to a house that looked like it had won several architecture awards before it was even built, and then several more afterwards.

"I don't understand," I said, although I understood one thing - there was magic in his mouth. I kissed him again and felt its tingle. "Can I be a swan again?"

"Of course. I could never deny you anything. If you want to be a swan then you shall. Didn't Jacob tell you the castle was my own construction?"

"Oh! Jacob..."

"He'll be all right, Bella. I told you. He is so generous of heart he can love again. Now me, I will never love another." Cullen's smile held me as securely as fortress walls.

"You love me?"

"Yes. I never thought I would love anyone, but I love you."

"I don't understand any of this."

He grinned. "Come to my house. We've got tamarillos. Meet my family."

"Hey, if Alice's name is Alice Cullen, then Cullen is your surname... so what's your first name?"

"My name is Edward." Now he was laughing. I had never seen him so happy. His arm was looped around my shoulder, mine around his waist, we were stumbling, bumping hips and thighs and knees, trying to walk, and tangling our feet together and grabbing each other, just like teenagers crazy in love. I tugged him down again and licked his neck, he growled and pretended to bite me, and it was taking a rather a long time to walk not very far.

"Edward like the prince in the old nursery rhyme?" I teased.

"I am he," he answered seriously, and of course, it just might have been true.

"So you're the prince of everything? Well, you're the prince of me," I said, with another magic kiss.

-end bit-

Edward & Bella 4 eva!

I know you're all dying to know what happened to Jacob. Kiss me quick, kiss me slow? The truth is, he met me! He is truly, madly and deeply happy, and so am I, and he is mine _all_ mine!

Now I'd better get on with something else.


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